


Keepin' The Faith

by starscreamfan2244



Category: Mach GoGoGo | Speed Racer, Speed Racer - Fandom
Genre: Look some parts sound a little...lustful but I assure you, No Tell Motel, Other, damn bitch you live like this?, rated no bueno, you know the rituals are intricate, you know they are
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 15:50:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19890388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starscreamfan2244/pseuds/starscreamfan2244
Summary: One dirty hotel.





	Keepin' The Faith

**Author's Note:**

> First time posting. I'm tired, rusty, been working on this for too long, I'm tired of looking at this. This is sort of a piece from a series in my head. It'll be rewritten later on but I'm pleased with what I've got. Concrit welcome. I live and die for feedback. Requests and ideas welcome. Love you guys, goodnight.

The room itself was rather small. Dirty, olive green carpet, a couple of old chairs, and one dirty queen sized bed. The smell was almost indescribable. A pungent cocktail of every bodily fluid known to man. Charles lifted up the blanket, inspecting the sheets. Rings and streaks of faded golds, reds, and browns stained the old, white cloth.

“Believe it or not,” Charles jumped, and turned toward the masked man. “This isn’t the worst motel I’ve stayed at. Far from it. This one has a microwave.” 

“No TV though.”

“That’s forgivable.” X said, sliding out the door once again. 

“Maybe for you.” Charles said with a heavy sigh. Cautiously, he sat on the mattress, half expecting it to fall out from under him. To his surprise, the bed was sturdy and the mattress was quite comfortable. Not comfortable enough to cancel out the scent, but he could ignore it for one good night’s rest. Feeling his last ounce of resistance dissolving, he sprawled out on the mattress. Just 24 hours ago, he was locked in a cell, sleeping in bursts on the floor. And now due to one man… Well.

A series of clicks and faint bootsteps informed him that X had returned. Charles decided that any sort of ‘thank yous’ could wait till the morning. He held consciousness till the click of the lock set him at ease. Finally, he drifted off into an uneasy sleep. 

  
  


―

It was only once he had grown comfortable that his eyes shot open, a heavy ringing in his ears and something nagging him in the back of his head. Soon enough, the ringing bled into a raging headache. “Oh. Christ…” Charles groaned, pressing his thumbs to his temples. 

“That bad, huh?” came the cool, smooth voice of his companion. 

“No, uh....” He trailed off. What was it he had wanted to ask? He rolled over to face the man. Well, he couldn’t exactly  _ face _ him. 

“You uh, you didn’t sleep for all that long.” 

Charles’s eyes drifted down to the small table he was working at. Where once a dead plant rested, now lay an assortment of wires, and a scuffed up radio. Thinking back to the Shooting Star, the only article that wasn’t immaculate was the radio. Scuffs had littered the dash and the plastic screen appeared completely shattered. For a man as finicky as Racer X was about his car, it hadn’t made much sense. Seeing now the precision he worked with, it confirmed to him that whoever had removed the radio, it hadn’t been X.

“Most fellas in your position, when they hit the bed, they stay out for a couple days.” X smiled to himself as if he were thinking of something he swore not to tell. It was the first time he had smiled in the hours they had spent together. He got the impression that this was a rare showing of humanity in the masked man. ‘How lucky I must be, then, to bear witness to it.’ Charles thought to himself. And yet, something still weighed on his mind. 

Oh.

Was that it?

“And what about you?” 

X’s head perked up. Though he couldn’t see much of his face, subtle twitching around the corners of his mouth indicated he was pondering the question.  _ The Invitation. _

“I’m not all that tired,” X finally replied. “I need to get this fixed before I can even think about headin’ to sleep. Boss man needs some sort of indication of where I….we...are.”

Both of them knew this was a lie.

Charles wasn’t supposed to be here. He was supposed to be locked in a backroom, taking whatever was dished out. Letting his secrets die alongside him. An acceptable casualty for the agency. 

Now faced with the reality of his gross insubordination, X couldn’t stand it. Taking it out on the small radio was a suitable sink for his anxieties. “Don’t worry about it. You need to go back to bed. You’ll need to save your strength.” The way he said it was as if the matter was settled. Case closed.  _ I am your authority. Listen to me.  _ Yet Charles could only hear the underlying message.  _ Please don’t press me on this. I’m still trying to work up a satisfying lie on why you’re still alive. _

“There’s only one bed.” 

X cleared his throat. “I noticed. What about it?”

“Where are you sleeping tonight?”

“In the car.”

“It’s freezing outside.”

X shifted in his seat. “Yeah, it is.” 

“There’s room on the bed. It’s warm and soft.” Charles patted the mattress beside him.

X stared at the bed, considering the offer, then turned away. “No.”

“No?”

“I can’t.”

“You can’t?”

“I sh...I shouldn’t…”

“Why?”

X opened and closed his mouth, trying to form an answer.  _ Running out of excuses, aren’t you ol’ boy?  _ “It wouldn’t look right.” X finally replied. 

Charles propped his head up and aimed his gaze at the masked man. “And would it have, ah, looked right if you had just left me for dead?”

The room fell silent as the two men stared at each other. From outside came the sound of slammed doors and raised voices. A young couple, perhaps. Or a pair of crooks waiting for the guy with the sleek sports car outside. 

Charles raised his eyebrows. “Where are you sleeping tonight, Racer X?”

X sighed and drew the visor from his face. Underneath lay tired green eyes. Suddenly, it seemed the pleasure of messing with the man began to slip away. 

“Scoot over then.” Charles shifted over and watched as he walked to the bed. X set the visor on one of the side tables and reached around to the back of his neck. As he pulled the edge of the mask up, his breathing hitched. He took a heavy breath and gripped tighter, practically tearing the damn thing off. 

“Not too comfortable, huh?” 

“Actually, I like myself better with mask on.” X said, tossing both his mask and gloves onto the side table. Next to come off was his shirt, which ended up balled and tossed across the room. Perhaps it was unnecessary to do so, but if he had been wearing the same shirt for 4 days, he would’ve tossed it too. 

More importantly, to witness the full range of motion on his back must’ve been a rare treat. Thousands of women would’ve killed to be in his position. Yet, the man in front of him didn’t seem like someone who would appreciate that sort of attention. 

Charles’s eyes drifted from his shoulders to his lower back, drinking in the view. It was alright to appreciate another man’s back, so long as he had been as many places as Racer X had. ‘And has the scars to prove it.’ Charles thought to himself, eyeing a long scar on his shoulder blade.

“I can feel you staring at me.” 

Charles coughed and recoiled his hand. “What happened to your shoulder there?”

“And why are you so goddamn nosy?” X snapped. He drew a deep breath and held it before exhaling slowly. “It’s...not interesting.” 

“I’m interested.”

“Of course you are.” He turned. His mouth was pressed into a thin line. “You really want to know what happened?” 

Charles nodded.

“Right. You wanna know? Fine. I was at my house. Surveying my handiwork. To my great misfortune, a couple of fellas caught wind of a real nice house in the area and came across mine instead. It’s the risk you take owning a permanent residence. Most agents of my class tend to drift from hotel to hotel, never staying in one place. But a man has to have some privacy.”

Handiwork? Now that  _ was _ interesting. Charles was well aware of the vast quantities of wealth a successful agent could acquire. Combining that with a prolific racing career, it was hard to believe he only owned one property. 

“What’d you do to them?”

“What? Oh, uh…” He sucked in through his teeth. “Nothin’ really. They were a couple of addicts. Nobodies. They were tearing through the place, didn’t hear me walk up. Took care of ‘em, though.”

X bent over, exposing more of his back to the light. Though unintentional, Charles couldn’t help but appreciate the gesture. A jagged line at the base of his neck brought forth ideas of an attempted beheading. A faded red line disappearing down his hip also caught his eye. A crash? A jealous lover? And his shoulder… The result of a row with a couple of ー

“Oh, right. The scar. Heh, well, after I got rid of those guys, I had to fix the place up a bit. Guess I didn’t do as good a job as I thought I had. Stepped outside and next thing I knew, I was on the ground. Just my luck, too, that there was this nail sticking up. It just slide right in my shoulder.” 

He kicked off his boots with a huff and sprawled out onto the bed. “And that’s that. Hurt like a bitch. About twisted my ankle too.” 

Charles blinked. “Oh.”

“You sound disappointed.”

“You were right, it wasn’t very interesting.”

X let out a dry laugh.

“I like the way you told it, though.”

“Yeah?”

“Can’t think of many people who would’ve told me the truth.”

“You wouldn’t have believed me otherwise.” X rolled over. “Night.”

“Is that all?”

“Goodnight.”

Charles propped himself up on his elbows. “There’s still time for one more. You know you want to tell me about them.” No response came. “I think…” A red line trailing down his inner forearm caught his eye. Vibrant. Recent.  _ Intriguing. _ “I’d like to hear about this one.”

Within the blink of an eye, X had his fist wrapped around his wrist. “Goodnight, Charles.”

He patted the back of his hand, his eyes alight with humor.  _ Ask me again tomorrow. _

Charles slumped back down. “Fine.” he huffed.

“Goodnight, X.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you finished this I'd die for you.


End file.
